“We’ll be careful,” Connie said. “You just get out of the way when the police move in. He has a habit of taking hostages, and we don’t want you to be one of them.”
When she’d hung up, Leopold buzzed for Fletcher. “I want cars blocking both ends of the street, and I want men on foot nearby. It’s a bad place for a stakeout, because there are no other buildings.”
“I’ll handle it, Captain, but we can’t move in too early. If he sees too much activity he’ll get suspicious and stay away.”
“Use unmarked cars, and plainclothesmen. Keep the uniforms out of sight. I’ll go in your car.”
“What about me?” Connie asked.
“If he starts shooting it might be a dangerous place for a woman.”
“I was the one who gave you the lead, Captain — remember?”
“All right,” he said with a sigh. “You can ride with us, but you stay in the car.” He supposed he had to start treating her like a man sometime.
The summer night was hot and humid, with a forecast of possible thunderstorms in the area. It was the sort of night that would have brought the people of Kathy Franklin’s neighborhood into the streets for a breath of air, if there were still any people there. As it was, only one old woman sat on the steps in front of the apartment house, staring up the street at the piles of rubble and the sickly trees. Perhaps, thought Leopold, she was remembering the way it had looked before urban renewal. Or imagining how it might look in the future, after she was gone.
“What do you think?” Fletcher asked as they drove by the building. “Want me to get her out of there?”
“No. He could be watching.”
“From where?” Connie asked. “There’s not another building within three blocks.”
“Let’s wait. It’s getting dark. Maybe the old woman will go inside.”
Because there was no place for cover, the unmarked cars had to remain some blocks away with their motors running, ready to move in. Fletcher’s car drove through the area twice, and then they transferred to another vehicle that wouldn’t look familiar. This time the old woman was gone from the steps, and the street was quiet.
“It’s after nine,” Fletcher said. “Still think he’ll come?”
Leopold watched the street lights going on, casting their harsh white glow over the shadowed jagged foundations. Before he could answer, a blue Ford turned into the street and parked in front of Kathy’s building.
“That’s the car!” Connie said.
“Right.” Leopold dropped a hand to the pistol on his belt, then took it away. “But it’s Kathy driving. And it looks as if she’s alone.”
“Think he’s already inside?” Fletcher asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s wait and see what happens. She said he’d be leaving in that car. Maybe he’s not here yet.”
They had fifteen minutes to wait before Kathy reappeared on the steps with a man. He stood in the shadows, glancing both ways on the street, before finally hurrying down to the car. She went with him to the car door and closed it after he slid behind the wheel. Then she moved back a few steps, waving goodbye to him.
“Let’s move!” Leopold shouted into the police radio. “All cars!”
The Ford started from the curb, moving slowly at first. It seemed to hesitate and almost stop, then Fletcher rounded the corner and the Ford took off. Two blocks away the police cars screeched into position, cutting off his escape.
“He’s stopping!” Connie said. “We’ve got him bottled up!”
“Stay here and keep down. Come on, Fletcher.”
Then they were out of the car and running, their guns drawn. The Ford hesitated between them and the police at the end of the street, and Leopold shouted, “Police, Razenwood! You’re surrounded!”
Suddenly he gunned the engine and veered to the left, over the curb, smashing through a board sign and across the rubble of a vacant lot.
“He’s getting away, Captain!”
Leopold fired two quick shots and started to run. On the next block they were firing, too, and he saw the Ford’s rear window shatter. The car hobbled across the brick-strewn lot and suddenly burst into flames as more bullets found their mark.
“He’s trying to get out,” Leopold shouted, racing forward. But the flames were too hot. The entire car was enveloped in fire, and there was no chance for anyone to get out alive.
Fletcher ran up then, and Connie, and presently Kathy came across the lot to where they stood. “Oh, my God,” Kathy cried, “did you have to do it like that?”
“One way’s as bad as another,” Leopold said grimly.
They went back to Captain Leopold’s office for coffee, and he sat glumly staring at Tommy Razenwood’s file on the desk before him. “I don’t like it to end this way, either, damn it! But the man was a kidnaper of children and a murderer! Maybe he didn’t deserve any better.”
“I didn’t say a word,” Fletcher mumbled. “How do you like your coffee, Connie?”
“Black, thanks.”
Fletcher came back in a moment with her coffee. Then he reached across the desk to pick up the files on Razenwood and Selby. But Leopold reached out to clutch them a moment longer. “What about it? What do you two think?”
“You fired first, Captain. If you hadn’t, maybe the others might have held their fire. But, hell, I’d have done the same thing. You can’t fool around with killers.”
Leopold barely heard the words. He was staring at the file on Pete Selby, seeing the notation under Known Habits:
Nonsmoker, nondrinker, addicted to heroin, frequents race tracks.
He read the words again. They seemed to have some meaning he couldn’t quite comprehend. “You can’t blame yourself,” Connie was saying.
Nonsmoker, nondrinker, addicted to heroin.
“Maybe I could have handled it differently,” he replied, wondering why the words of the report fascinated him so. It wasn’t even Razenwood’s file, but Selby’s. The file belonged to the wrong man.
Wrong man.
“Connie?” Go slow now. Take it easy.
“What is it, Captain?”
“You told me about your visit to Kathy Franklin that first time, when you suspected she was seeing Selby. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“You knew he’d just left because Kathy was tensed up and there were cigar butts in the ashtray and they’d been drinking. But Pete Selby doesn’t smoke or drink, not according to his file.”
“Maybe he just started,” she said with a shrug, but Fletcher was leaning forward, studying the file.
“And you mentioned the shopping bag, too. If a man has just robbed a supermarket and carried the money away in a shopping bag, would he bring the bag home and give it to his roommate?”
“He’d get rid of it as soon as he was finished with it,” Fletcher said.
“Exactly! And if the bag was at Kathy’s apartment it means the money was probably brought there, too.”
“But we know it was Tommy Razenwood who stole the money. The manager identified him, and so did everyone else. You mean he gave the money to Selby to take to Kathy’s apartment?”
Leopold shook his head. “Remember the cigar butts? There’s a much more likely explanation. Razenwood took it there himself. He was probably hiding in the closet when you arrived, Connie. Kathy was willing to admit that Selby had just left because it wasn’t true.”
Fletcher almost spilled his coffee. “Damn it, Captain, if the Franklin girl was in on the robbery with Razenwood, why should she finger him for the police and fly off to Mexico with Selby?”
“Why, indeed?” Leopold asked. He was already on his feet. “If we hurry, we can just about catch that midnight plane before it takes off.”